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Shannon McNally
w/Marc Broussard, Mon., July 2, 8:30 p.m., Tamiami Bar, St. Petersburg, $12.50 (adv.), $15 (day of show).
She's a feisty songstress, the kind who packs a distinct voice that's as commanding as it is sensual. Shannon McNally's singing is certainly indebted to the blues, but then there's a pop lilt to it that counterbalances the occasionally gruff sneer. There's also more than a hint of twang, which the singer/songwriter might have acquired after relocating from New York to New Orleans and then to North Mississippi. Or perhaps it's just a byproduct of hours spent listening to the classics of rock, country and soul. Either way, because of her rustic sound and the rootsy backing musicians she favors, McNally's typically categorized as alt-country.
"No matter what I do," she says, "it always sounds like me."
McNally, 34, is discussing her latest release, The Southside Sessions EP, a set of duets she did with Charlie Sexton that recalls the work of Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris, or maybe Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash.
"We definitely both really like Johnny and June," McNally says. "We lit a candle and toasted them at one point."
Sexton's the 1980s guitar prodigy from Austin, Texas, turned solo star, turned Bob Dylan bandmate, turned record producer. The seven tracks on the Sessions EP include smartly crafted originals and sensitive readings of Townes Van Zandt's "No Place to Fall" and Jesse Winchester's "Biloxi." McNally and Sexton's voices blend effortlessly, but the harmonies are loose -- evoking the image of a couple picking and singing on the porch after putting the children to bed.
"It just kinda came naturally," McNally says. "After we recorded Geronimo, we had done a bunch of little promo shows that were just me and him and a couple of guitars. It was really nice. Everyone said we should do a record."
The Sexton-produced Geronimo broke McNally on the alt-country scene. A collection of simmering mid-tempo songs fleshed out with a Hammond B3 organ and mournful steel guitars, it's a decidedly more country-soul affair than McNally's major label debut Jukebox Sparrows, which came out on Capitol in 2002.
McNally "wasn't worried" about changing her style with Geronimo. "I thought it was a great record. I'm really proud of it.
"I had the best band on planet Earth," she continues. "I figured even if the songs sucked it would sound great so I didn't worry. I didn't really see it as a change -- just a normal progression."
McNally's musical progression was met with resistance in the beginning. Signed to Capitol in 1997, she was being groomed to be the next Alanis Morissette. Unwilling to go along with their plans, she convinced the company to allow her to make the torchy Jukebox Sparrows, but the label shelved the album for years before releasing it with minimal publicity. McNally finally broke free of the major label and indulged her love of the sounds propagated by artists like The Band and Bonnie Raitt, two of her earliest and most significant influences.
"The system has gotten so small and broken down, it doesn't really count any more. Everyone I know is [on independent labels] like me and Charlie [Sexton]," McNally says. "I don't think about it. The industry in general has just been there to be a nuisance. The sooner it dies the better.
"Music will always get made," she concludes. "It'll be a whole lot easier to make good music without the peanut gallery."
Upon leaving Capitol, McNally moved from the Big Apple to the Big Easy, the city she called home until Katrina hit and forced her and her husband to relocate to Oxford, Miss. It was during her years spent in the Crescent City that she wrote material for Geronimo. "New Orleans affects everyone," she says. "It makes you bolder; it's darker and deeper. It just makes you a better artist."
McNally proves equally deft as a singer and songwriter on Geronimo. On the opener, "The Worst Part of a Broken Heart," she tells the tale of one woman trying to help another lose the blues after a bad breakup. "Pale Moon" finds the singer in confessional mode, recalling a past lover she would like to rendezvous with "in some desert town." The title track is an impassioned kiss-off that includes such memorable lines as "Listening for the sound of the my last hope hit the ground." The songwriter sees herself as a conduit.
"It helps to be, well, a little trancy," McNally says when asked about the process. "It's not like a trance trance, but you definitely know something is coming at you. You're distracted by this thing. It just comes on. It's just there.
"Then I can't do anything else until I sit down and write," she continues. "Generally, I have four or five songs going at the same time. Eventually they write themselves."
In addition to being an accomplished songwriter, McNally also shines as an interpreter. On Geronimo, she makes good on both the Bobby Charles tune "Tennessee Blues" and Taj Mahal's "Lovin' In My Baby's Eyes." On her live album from last year, North American Ghost Music, McNally took the Willie and Waylon favorite "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys" and gave it the reading its songwriter, Sharon Rice, probably intended.
When McNally performs with Marc Broussard at the Tamiami Bar in St. Pete on Monday night, she'll be tackling a few more past treasures. The show is billed as a "soul revue" with both artists performing separately and together with the same backing band. In keeping with the spirit of the "revue," McNally will lend her bourbon-soaked voice to stuff like Jimmy Ruffin's Motown masterpiece "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted."
"There will be originals," McNally says, "and choice covers."
